Obama's true colors: Black, white ... or neither?

A perplexing new chapter is unfolding in Barack Obama's racial saga: Many people insist that "the first black president" is actually not black.

Debate over whether to call this son of a white Kansan and a black Kenyan biracial, African-American, mixed-race, half-and-half, multiracial — or, in Obama's own words, a "mutt" — has reached a crescendo since Obama's election shattered assumptions about race.

Obama has said, "I identify as African-American — that's how I'm treated and that's how I'm viewed. I'm proud of it." In other words, the world gave Obama no choice but to be black, and he was happy to oblige.

More Comments:

Jeremy Dupertuis Bangs -
12/15/2008

Barack Obama is a descendant of Pilgrim Thomas Blossom, who arrived as a religious refugee in Leiden, Holland, in 1609 and emigrated to Plymouth Colony in 1629. This discovery by Christopher Child of the New England Historic Genealogical Society will be included in the revised edition of Gary Boyd Roberts' book on the genealogies of American presidents, due out in January. Leiden's alderman with responsibility for culture, Jan-Jaap de Haan, recently held a press conference on this topic (quite interesting for Leiden, the ancestral city of at least seven American presidents). See:http://www.leidschdagblad.nl/nieuws/regionaal/leidenenregio/article4125035.ece/Obama_heeft_Leidse_voorouders